Listen scumbag, you don't represent me. If people don't tip that's their choice, wishing bad things to happen to people because they don't tip is not only childish, it's gonna come back to bite you in the ass.

lol.. I don't care. 9 other people at the table will tell you to hurry up or leave. I get out about 19-21 hands a down. If you intend on being involved in 16-18 during my half hour down, I'm sure it will do wonders for your bankroll. Haha.

And, please, call the floor. I'd love to get a laugh out of hearing someone complain that they didn't like how their pot wasn't pushed directly into their lap (or whatever other nitty requirements you have in your head that make a "good dealer"). Then go on to explain why you want to hold up a game for 9 other people, who, at that point, would be calling for you to be tossed out.


Aww we've resorted to name-calling. Grow up, kid. Learn how to state an argument without working yourself up into a name-calling fit and then we'll have a discussion.

Nice brushoff of the actual statement.

One of the dealers in Tunica went to a medical clinic and was given a shot and prescriptions, as I was tipping him I asked why he didn't tip for the shot that the person giving the shot also preformed a service and is also underpaid (County clinic pays less than private clinics)? He just scrugged his shoulders. Told him next time he doesn't tip my wife I'll stiff him.

"private game", "invitation only", problem solved.


q/q

Shouldn't someone who works for tips know that it's an acronym and act accordingly?

No. It is not an acronym.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_%28...y%29#Etymology

Nice'n.

My mother was a waitress when we were kids and we basically lived off of the tips she made. I'm notorious for tipping wait staff generously which prompted my wife to comment about it. For some reason though I separate the wait staff, taxi drivers, and others who "serve" us from dealers. I still tip each pot I win or split, but not over $5 as a rule.

When I'm out, I'm paying for a good time and appreciate personable service, but no the "over-friendly" fake people. When I play cards, it's more of a business/economic thing and I see it as coming out of my working bankroll.

Anyone else make a similar differentiation? Or am I off base here?

Why did you quote me and then type this? I don't care if you stiff someone for a dumb reason like this.

I think a lot of people see it that way, in that outside of the fact that there are different shades of dealer quality, we're paying for routine service at a poker table. Very little of our tip goes to pay a dealer for service above and beyond the call of duty - where in a restaurant, for example, poor service versus good service might make a drastic difference in the size of our tip.

The tacit agreement is understood by most. Dealer's don't make enough base salary and we have to tip them or they have to eat catfood and drink sterno, and someone decided we get to make up the difference by paying them tips for every pot we win. *shrug*

...but we rarely tip dealers for being good or bad. We just blindly throw them a buck or so every time we win a pot. The only time "good" dealers are rewarded is if they keep the game moving. Fast doesn't necessary equal good, unless of course you're the guy GETTING the tips.

It's quoted, presumably, so that you'll understand you have a false sense of entitlement. You, by God and Country, deserve your tips, and woe be is him who doesn't give them to you, because you'll do your best to treat them as badly as you can get away with. Now if someone else doesn't get a tip, who cares -- because after all, you're the one who deserves them.

To the rest of the dealers in this thread - understand what this one dealer does for you all. You should collectively be ashamed that you work with people who'd give worse service if their sense of entitlement isn't met; let alone ones who'd brag about how intentionally lousy they'd be.

What is the general rule on tipping for tournaments? When I play at the casino, the dealers rotate among the cash and tournaments, but at the charity games, the tournament dealers seem to be only on tournament tables, which means that for 4-5 hours they can't get tips from the cash games. If you cash in a tourney, what is a good rule of thumb? The last time I won a tournament at the charity venue, the dealer gave me a sour comment because he thought I didn't tip enough. He was a bitter person and a poor dealer, so I'm not too upset, but still would appreciate some guidelines.

Ohh trying to rally troops to try to get people to agree with you. Whatever.

It's people like you who give the players a bad rap. The vast majority of players tip almost every hand. We love seeing them at the table. We (well, hopefully all dealers) do our best to make sure their experience at the casino is a positive one (even if they're losing). It's the very, very small minority of players who come across as if they think it's players vs dealers. You come across that way and it makes you look stupid.

Yes, I really only care about how much money I leave with every day. Do you care how much money your neighbor makes? If so, why? If it's less than you, are you going to go split your check with them? If it's more, why are they making more than you? Why am I supposed to care if some broke/cheap/poor player is stiffing someone else again? It sucks for the dealer, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. I'm sure they feel the same if I complain that some cheap ass stiffed me.

It's not a self-entitlement feeling on my end. I like to be paid when I work. Who doesn't? If you can't afford to tip, stay home or find a home game. Don't waste my time or any other dealer's.

You obviously know little about me and how I treat the people around me.

It's ironic. A man with contempt for getting stiffed does everything he can, it seems, to foster the sort of image for dealers that would make people want to stiff them. A self-fulfilling prophecy, for sure.

This is a subject of considerable debate, and there isn't a great rule of thumb.

If you want to make an educated decision, first find out how much of the prize pool (if any) was already withheld for the dealers. Generally speaking, the floor person will tell you -- or the dealer will on the sly.

I'm a relatively low tipper on tournament wins (a couple percent of net win with a reasonable minimum value for small cashes), but I don't play a lot of tournaments, so my personal data point isn't particularly interesting.

To put a couple percentage of net win in perspective, if everyone in my WSOP event had tipped 2% of net, the prize pool was 1.3M, with some money already withheld for dealers. With only 10% of the field cashing, 1.15M of the 1.4M was net win for cashing players. 2% of that is 23k. With the field cut in half by 6 or 7 hours of play - that meant the average player only played 6 or 7 hours (for everyone who played 15, someone played only 1). So with roughly 1000 players in the event, divided by 8 to a table, times at most 8 hours of average play per player, you get roughly 1,000 dealer hours required. 2% net win tipping gives each dealer another $23/hour on top of whatever they got withheld and paid hourly. You can put in much more pessimistic or optimistic numbers, but you'll still likely get at least $20/hour more in tips.

Obviously smaller buy-in tournament pay less this way.
Obviously larger buy-in tournament pay more this way.
Obviously a larger percentage pays more.
Obviously a smaller percentage pays less.

...but smaller buy-in events also don't likely have a thousand dealer hours to pay out, so factor accordingly.

Ok, I'm willing to grant that you have every right to feel that way.


So I'm sure that you, being an intelligent reasonable human being, which I'm sure you are, will take some introspective time to reflect on your own righteousness and ultimately conclude that any players who may happen to also hold that same feeling are as equally righteous if they choose not to tip you.


Certainly you couldn't object to others holding themselves to an identical standard you claim for yourself?


.

Again, I think the solution here is simple:

* If good service is offered, and the pay is still kept inadequate, dealers should absolutely reduce service to a level appropriate to the compensation being offered. Less hands, lower hourly for the grinders, less incentive for them to camp out and kill the games and bust the recreational gamblers. Professional nits are not entitled to free labor, no matter how strongly they feel they are. A 10-20% reduction in hands-per-down is very easy to do without raising an eyebrow, and everyone knows it.

* If at all possible, qualified staff should leave low-paying rooms to the break-in's and the weak dealers. Keep job apps circulating, move to better rooms when the opportunity presents itself, and do not try and make a career out of charity work. Work where you are paid, and do your best for those customers who actually appreciate your efforts.


q/q

I wholeheartedly agree with your second point. If you aren't paid a fair wage, please, by all means, go look for a job that pays you a fair wage.

Your first point, however, is disgusting.

How about, "Do a good job, always." Is that such a terrible concept for poker dealers? Is that the work ethic anyone was taught?

If the rest of us aren't paid enough at work, we don't intentionally drag our feet.

We get it. By "pay" you don't mean the cheap corporations who pay you minimum wage or less. You mean the players who are lining the pockets of your bosses.

Never mind Club A only gives you 4 days a week so they can consider you "part time" and not offer benefits. Never mind that you only get 5 hours in the box a shift because they over schedule dealers and run the room poorly and chase customers away. Never mind that they make you deal lousy tournaments that only seem to make the TD any money.

They tip 30% more that club B.

Club B, where you get 5 days a week and 6 hours a shift in the box. No lousy tournaments.

I guess your idea of heaven is Club A.

And the part in red is the topper. Fine. Deal less hands. Then complain about your tokes at the end of the day.

You are coming across like devilhatesaloser, but with a smooth style.

I always do a good job, and my work ethic is second to none.

That being said, I am not a charity worker, and my poker rooms are not your personal welfare program.

Also: from your profile, I see that you appear to be involved in running private games in the Phoenix area (am I wrong?), and I can't help but wonder if you have a financial interest here that goes beyond what you are disclosing.

Name any other business where you can request A-list professional services, refuse to pay for them, then continue to get them anyway for free.

That's a welfare program, not a viable business.


q/q

Let's be clear: I work for my players, they are my employers, they are my bosses.

I give them great service.

However: if they collectively decide to gang up and cut my pay in order to marginally increase their profits -- **which is exactly what is happening here on 2+2** -- then I believe it is entirely appropriate for me (and the rest of the staff) to respond in kind.


q/q

Ok, so lets clear this up, real simple:

Do you advocate reducing the level of your service if you feel your compensation isn't appropriate, or do you advocate always doing your best work?
I generally don't discuss my home games here in B&M in that it always reeks of advertising, but in the interest of full disclosure I'll explain.

1. I participate and help manage a low-dollar league in the far SE Phoenix suburbs that runs on Wednesday nights. It's a purely social thing, with $10 games, point-keeping and a quarterly party where I give away a lot of liquor and cigars.
2. I co-manage a self-dealt home game in the NL100 range that takes a WSOP seat rake (all money returned to players) that sent three players (myself included) to various WSOP games this year. That game runs 2-3 Saturday nights a month.

I also play in casinos 1-2 nights a week, as I'm a full-time technology professional, and there are only so many hours left in the week. I travel work for and generally try to visit a local casino or card room when I go. This week it was Player's Casino in Ventura, CA where I got to play 1/3 PL BigO/8. Dealers there should be quite happy, as the game was very juicy, and the average tip was about $1 per $200 in the pot with a $1 minimum generally from both players in a split-game, making the average tip per hand much closer to $3.

My personal plan on in-casino tipping is well documented early in this thread in bullet-point detail.

The only people who will see a conflict here are those who are looking for a free lunch.

You get the service you pay for. Always with a smile, always with professionalism, but not as an endless freeroll.


q/q

Hold on, answer the question:

Do you advocate reducing the level of your service if you feel your compensation isn't appropriate, or do you advocate always doing your best work?